1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus for a personal computer, called a printer, and more particularly to an improved printing technology able to make high quality prints on even regular paper by coating a surface modifier on only a specific portion, where an image is to be printed, of the surface of regular paper, in order for printing an image such as a photograph on regular paper.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, as inexpensive color printers have become mainstream, users have become able to print images, such as photographs and designs prepared on personal computers, using color printers. A printing apparatus (color printer) prints (the term “printing” will hereafter refer to the printing of both images and text) images such as photographs and designs, as well as specified text, with the specified coloration and at one time on printer paper supplied thereto, on the basis of printing information supplied from a personal computer. When the printer paper is a recording medium such as regular paper, however, it is not possible to print images with very good quality because of the poor coloring properties and moisture absorption of the recording medium.
For this reason, when a user wanted to make a high quality print of a photograph or the like, the user had to make the print using special paper, coated with a surface modifier, instead of regular paper. Inventions relating to this special paper include Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 6-48016, Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 6-255235, and Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 7-68919.
However, the special paper is more expensive than regular paper. It is not economical to use expensive special paper for printing a photograph on only one part of the special paper.
Also, only a few types of special paper are commercially available and are not readily available to many offices and storeholds. For this reason, the use of color printers has many limitations; for example, users usually print images such as photographs on regular paper, knowing that the print will be poor quality, or prepare data without using these images.